Michael

Sabine

Elder Müller

Sabine Müller and Michael Ratcliffe met over the internet. As Michael had served a mission in Utah, he signed on a young single adult webpage www.ldsmingle.com; that is hosted by members and is specially for members of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints; so that he could stay in touch with many of the missionaries he served with.

Sabine wanted to study and live in the US and also was looking for friends so that she searched the web and found the same web page. She usually would just look for people in the US or rather in Utah particularly, but one lunch break she
was prompted to search also in the United Kingdom. The only person that did fit her requirements was a guy called: Mike Ratcliffe. She loaded his profile and immediately had to laugh when she saw the picture he chose. Riveted to the picture
she read through his entire profile and was specially fascinated by his testimony at the end of the page. She had contact with many returned missionaries, but unfortunately many of them had forgotten what they had learned on their missions
and therefore had lost the spirituality that she was looking for and Mike certainly had all of that! She wrote a short email to Mike, introducing herself and telling him that she liked his profile.

This Mike, as you can imagine is actually called Michael. When Michael had received Sabine's email, he thought that it is great that Sabine could relate to him (same sense of humour), but at the same time he didn't want any commitment (ha,
a returned missionary that is frightened of commitment!!!).

Michael wrote her back after TWO weeks feeling strongly that she had had a particularly spiritual experience on her mission. He wanted to keep in touch, but was nervous about the commitment involved in a relationship…. especially when he
was part way through taking a degree.

Sabine was occupied with a lot of things and therefore had forgotten that Michael owed her an answer (after two weeks). When she saw the email she wrote him back the same day, explaining about Beate Kehl from Germany. She had taken her on
a tour and later on even came back to Salt Lake City to be baptized there just two weeks before Sabine's mission was finished.

In the meantime in the UK, Michael's computer had crashed. He had quite a problem getting everything up and running again. After his computer problems he didn't write for a while as he was pre-occupied by other things. After almost a month
he had an experience in the temple where he saw part of their future together. At this point Michael knew that Sabine and himself would become married and then sealed in the House of the Lord.

That very same night Michael wrote an email to Sabine making her aware that he had had a special experience and desired her to have the same experience. In short he proposed to her…!

Sabine had been to a birthday party and came home quite late that day, but even though it was 03:00am she quickly wanted to check her emails. As she was very tired, she wasn't quite sure whether Michael had proposed to her or not and decided
to go to bed and sleep first. The next morning a friend of hers came by and she asked him for counsel regarding Michael's email. Her friend reckoned what she had thought, that Michael had proposed to her. She wanted to have the same experience
as she felt such a strong spiritual bond between her and Michael, but then at the same time was scared of the answer. After talking to a few people (most of them expressing that this Michael is crazy!) she tried to avoid Michael.

Michael had not expected that response. He also felt an extremely powerful spiritual bond with Sabine. He was much more nervous now about the level of commitment involved in being married and sealed in the temple. He knew it was going to
happen, but was nervous about it all the same. They had been chatting using MSN Messenger (internet chat program) and Sabine had tried to make excuses as to why it could not work. Michael still felt comfortable that it would work as he
had seen it.

Even though Sabine had been chatting with Michael now for almost every night in the past month, she still did not feel comfortable about the commitment, as she hadn't had to take a leap of faith such as this before. Even though she tried
to push Michael away, she still felt the urge to call him one day on the phone, scared whether she could understand the British English, as she was used only to the American English.

The telephone conversation went well … they talked for around nine hours! They got along especially well, but Sabine didn't want to call for a few days as she wanted to gather her thoughts. To her own surprise, she was unable to avoid calling
Michael.

Four days after the first phone call, they were talking again on the telephone. For the first seven hours Michael felt prompted to propose to Sabine. At the same time he was nervous about her running away if he proposed to her again and
also nervous about the commitment. Sabine could feel the spirit very strong and knew that Michael had to ask her the famous "Will you …" question, but he didn't. But when there was quite a long pause she boldly said to him: "That thing
that is in your mind …. you need to ask me!" After a very long pause Michael asked back: "Are you sure that you want to hear that?" - "Yes." Michael took a deep breath and asked an additional question: "Is there anything more scary that
I could ask you?" to make sure that they both were thinking of the same question. Sabine's answer was: "No" (there is nothing more scary to ask). …………… There was a very long pause this time, an even deeper breath but the Spirit was stronger
then ever felt before. Michael finally asked: "Will you marry me?" another very long pause and Sabine replied: "Yes."

Michael had served a mission and knew that to get married one day in the next millennium was not a very firm commitment. He asked: "What date should we get married?" Sabine was a little taken aback as she realized what she just had done.
There was another pause and Michael said: "I think it should be soon." Sabine didn't know what to say and therefore just agreed. Michael set the date and they prayed together about it. After the prayer they realized that they hadn't met
yet in person (which surely would be good if you are planning on getting married). So therefore it was organized that Michael could fly to Switzerland the next weekend to visit Sabine and her family.

The first meeting at the airport was a bit "funny", but after a few hours they felt as comfortable as ever with one another. When Michael's aeroplane took off back to Manchester that Sunday, Sabine realized how much she already missed him
and they organized that he could stay for the summer holidays in Switzerland. During these holidays they were married and sealed for time and all eternity in the House of the Lord.